Businesses discovering the value of Skype in long-distance job interviews

Asspciated PressMicrosoft CEO Steve Ballmer, left, and Skype CEO Tony Bates shake hands during a news conference in San Francisco on May 10 to announce Microsoftâs acquision of Skype.Â

By KYLE ALSPACH Boston Business Journal

Ju’lia Bàràn had never interviewed for a job before, much less one in the U.S., so far from her home in Hungary.

But the 22-year-old didn’t have to leave her home to do so. For the job, as a hostess at the InterContinental Boston, Bàràn did two interviews using the Skype online video chat service.

“It made the whole thing so easy,” said Bàràn, who started the job three weeks ago, after being hired following the Skype interviews.

Skype, mostly known for linking family and friends via live video chat, is also proving a useful tool for businesses - especially when it comes to interviews with job candidates or connecting a geographically distributed staff.

Yet there still isn’t overwhelming corporate endorsement for Skype, said Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at the Yankee Group in Boston. And that’s where Microsoft, which on May 10 announced plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion, will probably come in, Kerravala said.

“They’re a mainstream IT vendor, whereas Skype is not,” he said. “So having them support it, and having them bring in software tools and corporate controls - that will definitely help.”

For the purposes of the InterContinental, however, the way Skype works right now is just fine. Human resources director Jay Babbitt said the hotel has hired a handful of people over the past year following Skype interviews. In some cases it’s just used as the initial interview; but for Bàràn and another recent hire, who were both outside the country, the hiring decisions were made with only the Skype interview.

“Obviously the best scenario for an interview is to meet that person face-to-face, but Skype is essentially the next best thing when that’s not available,” Babbitt said.

The InterContinental has only used the free service to date, he said. For a charge, businesses can get more tools, as well as the ability to use Skype to make voice calls to phones.

At Seeding Labs in Boston, a nonprofit that transfers surplus biomedical equipment from the U.S. to developing countries, Skype has replaced landlines for voice calls, said CEO Nina Dudnick. The organization has worked with people in 16 countries - in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean - and Dudnick said she uses Skype for keeping in touch with contacts and staff around the world.

Dudnick said she also used Skype to interview a job candidate several weeks ago, even though the candidate was only in Connecticut.

Seeding Labs uses the paid service, but it’s still a lower cost than the alternatives, she said. Dudnick credits Skype with helping to enable her organization to stay afloat since it was founded in 2008. “For a startup nonprofit, starting in a recession, that was really important,” she said.

At iLab Solutions LLC in Cambridge, a software firm focused on operations of research institutions, the use of Skype enables the company to have an “extremely decentralized” operation, said CEO Tad Fallows. The 20-person staff is spread around the U.S. and in Canada and Europe, an intentional decision by the company to take advantage of a broader talent pool, Fallows said.

Using Skype for voice calls is both less expensive and more efficient than a traditional phone service, he said. “If I’m talking with a head of sales, and I want to pull in the head of engineering, I just hit ‘add to call’ and bring them in,” Fallows said.

Skype also offers other tools that are useful for businesses, such as the ability to share documents, he said.

When it comes to Microsoft’s ownership of Skype, Fallows said, “my main hope would be that they leave it be.” 